Rock slide kills hiker
Monday, June 28, 2004 Posted: 4:05 PM EDT (2005 GMT)
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I just looked up and these boulders were just coming
– Will Williams, friend of Roger Cooper
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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – A man was killed in a fatal rock slide as he was out hiking on Mount Katahdin with three friends who graduated from high school with him 33 years ago.
“I just looked up and these boulders were just coming,” said Will Williams, who watched his friend Roger Cooper, 52, die within minutes after Saturday rock slide.
“It’s just the worst nightmare you could ever think of, and there’s just the boulder that landed on him, just this massive boulder, and I couldn’t move,” Williams said.
Another friend, Stacey Hall, 51, of Somersworth, New Hampshire, was pinned on his shoulder by another large rock. Williams somehow dislodged that rock and called for help on Hall’s mobile phone.
“I’m a pretty hefty guy and I can move stuff, especially in a crisis situation, but it took all my strength to get it off of this guy,” said Williams, a nurse.
Williams was unhurt, as was Frank Atkins, 51, of Huntsville, Alabama, who had hiked ahead of the other three.
All four men graduated from Noble High School in North Berwick in 1971. They were hiking the Cathedral Trail on the mountain’s south basin when the massive boulders began falling from above without warning.
About 60 people worked to rescue the three survivors. A Maine Army National Guard helicopter arrived and took Cooper’s body.
Baxter State Park, about 60 miles north of Bangor, is a popular attraction for hikers, mountain climbers and campers. It is the site of Maine’s highest peak, the mile-high Katahdin, the northern end of the Appalachian Trail.
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